


Rocket Egg Brigade

by RMWrites



Series: Go go go! [2]
Category: Pokemon GO
Genre: For funsies, Gen, Gotta admit I don't know how to write Sierra, I hadn't realized this was an event until Cliff dropped his egg child in my lap, I will finish this as soon as I walk three 12k eggs ow, Mysterious Red Egg Event, Team GO Rocket (Pokemon), Team Instinct (Pokemon), This trainer just wants to do research but people in balloons and funky t shirts keep bothering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:22:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27362674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RMWrites/pseuds/RMWrites
Summary: "But can you believe this? He left his egg child here!"
Series: Go go go! [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1998517
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28





	1. Chapter 1

It was an egg.

She had seen eggs before, dozens, maybe even hundreds of them at this point. Over four years of working for Spark allowed her to take part in the hatching and raising of many orphaned or gifted Pokémon eggs.

But this egg was bizarre in all meanings of the word.

First: she had just finished having a nice friendly battle with that one huge fellow that occasionally accompanied the rambunctious teens who flew around on the hot air balloons (she _thinks_ his name is Cliff? He was built like a goddamn _mountain_ so maybe it was a nickname?). He had done his usual posturing (she had long since learned that anyone wearing an R on their person had a flair for dramatics- it was hilarious) before taking off again- but not after shoving the egg into her arms which had distracted her enough for a quick departure.

Second: the egg had _red_ spots. She had known green and yellow and purple, had several yellow spotted ones in incubation, but she had never seen a red one before. It felt heavy in her arms and cool in the way of an egg not ready to hatch.

Third: Why were the balloon people giving her eggs?

“HEY!” she shouted up at the long departed balloon, before cursing loud enough for Tonka Truck to pop his head out of the window he was sunning himself in and blinked with a deep burr.

“Sorry, Tonks,” she apologized to the Bulbasaur. “But can you believe this? He left his egg child here!”

Scarlet eyes peered at the egg she held out to him, already forgiving her for disturbing his rest as vines trailed out of his bulb to feel along the smooth edges of the egg with a curious murmur.

“Yeah, I though the same too. Haven’t seen an egg with red spots before. I should probably talk to Spark and scramble his brain- hey, can you open the door for me? Thanks!”

\--

“I have never seen an egg like this.” Spark scratched his head, looking over the readings on his screen. “It’s slightly denser than some of the others we’ve scanned, but these readings look normal.”

“Huh.” The white-haired Trainer rolled over to the machine on the other side of the small lab space, peering at the egg inside. “We’ve been doing research that the heavier eggs are indicative of a heavier Pokémon, either by type or size. Yet with a new egg group to study, it could make or break the study.”

“It does expand our statistics,” Spark hummed from the computer. “That is, if we can get access to more. I will send a note out to the others in the Team and ask Candela and Blanche to tell theirs as well, maybe we can compile more concrete data. You said you got it from someone in a hot air balloon? It wasn’t a Rocket, were they?”

“Not everyone in a hot air balloon is a Rocket Operative, Spark, we’ve been over this-“

A loud bang shook the entire research outpost, knocking several things off shelves and tables and onto the floor. She swore as a stack of articles scattered across the room, having to hop over them to avoid getting footprints on the sheets as she made her way to the front of the small house.

“Cheese, what have I told you about landing on the roof?!”

She realized her mistake as soon as she shouted out the window, the Charizard fast asleep in a sand bath on the side of the mesa across the way. Her head clonked against the windowsill as she jerked her head back inside, Tonka Truck already at the door with a concerned warble as they both went to investigate the source of the trouble.

It was another hot air balloon. Of course it was. Didn't they know she had research to do?

“So you’re the one causing trouble around here.”

The trainer stared at the unfamiliar woman on the roof for several seconds before a lightbulb went off in her head.

“Oh! You must be- oh, what was it? The one kid with the Cubone told me- Sierra! It’s Sierra, right? Can you not land on my roof? We just fixed it.”

The sneer and the snap of a Pokéball opening evicted another colorful word as the Instinct Trainer lunged back inside the house to find her belt.

\--

By the time Arlo showed his face, she had two red-speckled eggs and an inkling of what was going on.

“Look,” she told the scientist as soon as he opened his mouth to do his usual speech. “Let’s cut to the chase and just, hand it to me.”

“What?” Arlo had the audacity to look a bit taken aback as she held her arms out.

“The other two already left their egg children here with me. You don’t need to make a big fuss about battling and pretending to be upset when you lose just as a cover to leave an egg in my care. There’s no way I should be able to sweep your teams with just a Mamoswine. You could, I don’t know, just ask?”

Arlo just stared at her.

“Also there’s a shortage on potions and the nearest Poké Center is literally a day trip away and Cheese’s currently shedding.”

“…Only if you say I won.”

“Yeah yeah, whatever helps you sleep at night. Now cough it up. There’s a water bottle in the cooler over there that you’re free to help yourself to. Goodness knows why you wear so many layers in the desert in the middle of the afternoon-“


	2. Chapter 2

The Spearow stared her down on its perched on the fence, its crest fluffed up in an intimidation posture.

“No,” the Instinct Trainer told the bird, hands on her hips. “You get one. _One._ ”

The Pokémon puffed up even further, letting out an indignant squawk.

“ _Fine_ , two, then.”

A beady eye squinted at her.

“Okay okay, two, _and_ you can peck one of them. Just get their attention, you bossy bird.”

She sighed as the Spearow took off, wings catching arid winds as it flew up higher and higher towards the drifting balloon in the distance. It was just her luck, that when she needed one of those funky, dramatic kids, they made themselves scarce. She couldn’t chase them fast enough out of her yard when she _didn’t_ need them, now that it seemed that the research outpost had become part of a common route to wherever it was they decided to fly from. She didn’t understand why- it wasn’t like there was anything particularly interesting in her neck of the woods- or rather, the desert.

She had just knelt back down to weed around the aloes when the Spearow returned, triumphantly carrying a beakful of magenta hair in its mouth.

“I said peck, not scalp,” she scolded the bird, but offered the two tiny candies to the creature anyway from a pouch on her belt. The candies made the Pokemon drop the hair, too eager to take its reward and fly off to roost in one of the nearby shrubs as the large, familiar shadow fell upon the outpost.

“What’s the big idea?!” one of the lads shouted, half hanging out of the balloon, hair mussed by wind and pesky birds and his fellow brother holding him back to keep him from truly falling out.

“Yeah!” a third poked his head over the basket’s railing, pointing an accusatory finger at her. “You don’t go tangling with us out of the blue, or you’ll get it!”

“Yeah yeah,” she rolled her eyes before calling back. “Sorry about that! I just want to know if you got that big guy’s number!”

That seemed to shut them up for a second.

“Who?!”

“You know! Huge, built like a mountain. I _think_ his name is Cliff? You got his number?”

They stared at her for a moment, then at each other before all three tried to talk at once.

“Why?”

“Cliff? Don’t know him!”

“What makes you think we got one of our Leader’s numbers on speed dial?”

The third got two elbows to the ribs, making him squawk much like the Spearow had earlier. She dutifully pretended she didn’t see that.

“Look, just, when you see him, you let him know that egg he left here with me will be hatching soon if you wants to see it, alright? He’ll know what’s up.”

“Why would we tell anyone anything for you?” one of the boys tried to sneer, but he was trying far too hard to look intimidating to have any effect on her. She snorted, bending down to pick up her tools and started heading back towards the house.

“Because!” was all she called to them, shutting the door on their ruckus and posturing from their balloon.

“They’re too nosy _not_ to tell him,” she explained to Tonka, who burbled questioningly from his bed. “I swear they gossip like old washerwomen- what would you like for lunch-?”

\--

The first day went by without word. Then a second. By the third, she had decided no one was coming at all. The egg was happily nestled in its incubator, sat in the machine while she squinted at the data on her screen with an intense crease in her brow. Everything _seemed_ normal, but it was a mysterious egg, with no clear sign of what could come out of it and what condition it had been in before it was given to her (not that she thought it’d be poorly treated by Cliff, but she hadn’t a clue where _he_ got it from).

Focused on marking a note in her journal and chewing on the end of her pen, she barely registered the knock at the door and the burr of her faithful Bulbasaur from his secondary bed in the corner of the lab space.

“Get that will you?” she murmured absently, pen back between her teeth as she clicked through the data readings. The uneven plodding of Tonka Truck missed her by a mile, as did the opening and shutting of the door not even a moment later.

“You’re a week early, Prof.”

A throat much deeper than Professor Willow’s cleared from the doorway, making her nearly choke on her pen as she twirled around in her chair.

It definitely wasn’t Willow.

Cliff stood in the opening, shoulders hunched to fit, looking out of place and awkward in the tiny room. He had at least thrown on a pullover to combat the winter desert chill that settled during the twilight hours, two sizes too small all the same. Tonka Truck looked pleased as punch as he trotted over to his bed, making his content rumbling purr of his as he settled back down.

It was then she realized she had been gawking in shock for too long.

“Oh! I didn’t think you were coming! Uh, come in- promise I don’t bite. Just let me finish this real quick because otherwise I will forget all about it and will not remember five minutes from now.”

She immediately turned back to the computer, hoping to escape the awkward situation by burying herself in the data and notes for just a few minutes longer. The problem was, she couldn’t focus, not when she knew Cliff was right behind her, looming like an ominous shadow in the tiny lab.

“Uh, alright.”

She could hear him move around the small space, looking at all the equipment that she, Spark, and Professor Willow had masterfully stuffed into the room. The Trainer hunched further over her notes, self-conscious and unprepared for this intrusion.

“Sorry for the mess,” she worked out of her throat, pen finding its way back to her mouth. “It’s been hectic lately.”

“…I didn’t know you did labwork here”

The white-haired woman paused, slowly tucking the pen behind her ear finally as she swirled her chair around to look at the mountain of a man who was dutifully not touching any of the flashing lights or tempting switches.

“What? You think I just hang out here?”

“The Grunts decided this is your house, since you’re here so often.”

She couldn’t help but bust out laughing, the anxiety fading as she gave him a lopsided grin.

“I mean, yeah, I guess, but I don’t, you know, _own_ the place. It’s a research outpost that I happen to occupy for the time being.”

“By yourself?”

“I have Tonka Truck with me.”

Tonka Truck crooned sleepily from his bed in response to his name, but Cliff’s brows, which had furrowed, didn’t loosen in its intensity.

“Besides,” she tacked on, as she rolled her chair towards the other end of the desk to add her journal to the pile of notes already present. “With how often you lot drop in, it’s like having neighbors! It’s almost an upgrade from the Trapinch and Cacnea that keep showing up in the yard.”

She got rewarded with a humored snort.

“The Grunts can be a handful sometimes,” he admitted. There was a slight pause, then- “They think you’re an ex-Champion who makes it your duty to annoy them and it’s the ultimate test to try to beat you.”

“Wh- an ex-Champion? You can’t be serious.” It was so incredulous that she almost started laughing all over again, making a rather gross snort instead as she tried to suppress it. “Is that why they keep wanting to battle me? What do _you_ think I am then, since you and Arlo always seem keen on fighting me too?”

The silence that greeted her made the white-haired Trainer turn around. Cliff wasn’t looking at her, but she could see the tips of his dark ears turn even darker, and she just stared.

“I _can’t_ believe it!”

“I haven’t said anything.”

“You don’t need to.” She pushed her feet back, the chair rolling across the room as she slid to a stop slightly in front of the other Trainer. He was positively huge from her current position, but his sheepishness made her think nothing of the size difference other than grin teasingly.

"None of you know who I am, do you.”

“…No.” He sounded so defeated- she patted his arm consolingly.

“To be fair, I would be surprised if you did. I’m not actually even an official Trainer, so I wouldn’t be in any database you’d be poking your nose into.”

Cliff was staring at her. She stared back, grinned, and rolled away from the taller man.

“No- come back here- how can you _not_ be a Trainer-“

“I never took any of the tests when I was in Primary School, and I never owned even one as a pet so I never had to do any of the training courses for licenses. No Journeys, no official Starter Pokémon from an accredited Professor or Gym Leader. Went to college instead, then I found Tonka Truck, and things kinda got wild after that. I’m technically registered as a Research Assistant, so that’s why I’m allowed to have Pokémon, but I’m not really supposed to be battling, or, well, get _caught_ battling at any case since they're not technically _my_ Pokémon but-”

“You’ve been battling _illegally?”_

“What? As how funny it is to straight up tell the kids in the balloons ‘no’, it isn’t like they’d ever take that as an answer. You know, I could always just punch them I guess, but then I’d feel bad for breaking their nose for being cocky teens from the local drama club with matching shirts and too much time on their hands-“

“A _drama_ club?!”

“I mean, it _could_ be a sports team, but I’m not really well versed in popular sports, and you lot are far too dramatic with your posturing to be anything else- which is hilarious, by the way. Ten outta ten. I mean, you _did_ purposefully stack your team against a Mamoswine that you all knew I like to start first since No can take a heavy hit without breaking a sweat-“

“It’s _intimidation_. It’s called _tactics,_ and how can you see our uniform and _not_ know who we are? We’re Team-“

An unfamiliar chirr stopped the bantering dead in its tracks, the two blinking owlishly at each other before turning to stare at the machine where the egg used to be. All that remained were brittle bits of shell, a green dinosaur of a Pokémon sitting in the middle as it blinked pretty ruby eyes at them both.

“A Larvitar,” the Instinct Trainer breathed, cooing gently as she rolled over to it, Cliff not too far behind as he squatted down to get to a more appropriate height for the young creature. “Welcome, oh, you’re so cute. Do you mind if I scan you a little? Just stand right there- or in his arms, that’s fine too.”

The Larvitar had been quick to vacate the machine and broken egg shells, nubby limbs flailing as it climbed up and over, and quickly rescued by Cliff’s strong arms. It crooned, settling in his grip without a single worry and comforted by his warmth as the tall man held onto the heavy creature with barely a strain. He looked both surprised and content, a small smile creeping into the corners of his mouth as he rested a large hand on the rough back, letting the creature use him as a pillow.

The white-haired woman held up her phone, pressing several buttons to access the PokéDex app for documentation. 

“Congrats on the daughter, Cliff.”

Cliff, to his credit, did not drop the Larvitar as he spluttered.


	3. Chapter 3

“What _are_ you doing?”

The trainer looked up from her lecture to the very attentive Larvitar in the various toppings the Pokémon could add, her eyes following very sharp heels up very, very long legs to find a sneering Sierra looking down her nose at the other woman.

She blinked dumbly at her, all sense of intelligence leaving her for the moment as she opened her mouth.

“Uh, baking cookies?”

The two humans took the chance to survey the chaos around them at her words. There were over a dozen Pokémon loose in the small kitchen, each with bowls or even Tupperware from how much the original base dough had been divided. Tonka Truck was stirring his own with a variety of nuts with a vine from his bulb while another limber vine was trying to keep a very eager Buizel from spinning their bowl off the table. An ancient-looking Alakazam with her whiskers almost pure white with age seemed as if she was sleeping at first glance, but the five bowls tending to themselves before a thrilled flock of Murkrow and a single Nincada said otherwise. A Trapinch was attempting to take a bite out of a very irate Breloom who looked half ready to fling the creature across the room. Two Chimchar were on the kitchen counter pouring oats off the edge and into a waiting container held by an extremely purple Meowth while the white-haired trainer’s back was turned, a Panpour was doing their best in keeping a very nosy Munchlax from quite literally crawling into the oven to get at the cookies that were still baking-

A surprised yelp drew the trainer’s attention snapping back to Sierra only to find a familiar ball of feathers angrily pecking at the woman’s ankle while said woman leaned away, her usual contempt replaced with shock at the sudden attack.

“Aw, saying hello to your Pokémom, huh, Pecksy?”

“What,” Sierra finally found the words, drawing them out as she wrinkled her nose at the Bird Pokémon at her feet that she finally set back down as if she hadn’t been holding it up off the floor to avoid being assaulted by a roaming bundle of feathers. “Is that.”

“It’s a Vullaby!”

She was pretty sure Sierra would have no qualms in booting the creature across the house, so the white-haired trainer swiftly left the Larvitar to her devices as she swept the fluffy menace up from the floor, continuing to speak as she went.

“Those eggs you guys left me have been pretty interesting so far! Cliff’s hatched into Vista over there, and yours is pesty Pecksy here. Arlo's hasn't hatched yet, but any day now! Say hello to your Aunt, Pecksy!”

Pecksy made a croaking noise as her neck feathers puffed up, giving the taller woman a look that promised violence.

Sierra stared at them both with an incredulous expression, quickly turning into a wrinkled nose of disgust and disbelief.

“You named it.”

“Of course!”

“Pecksy.”

“It’s short for Merriam-Peckster, since the first thing she did after hatching was attack a dictionary. Then she destroyed Professor Willow’s boots, hacked up a ball of yuck right in front of my bed that I stepped on the next day in the dark, and tries to terrorize The Murder despite not being able to fly quite yet. Dark-types tend to be a handful, but she’s right trouble!”

And she couldn’t be any happier about it. Dark-types got the reputation of being difficult. It was in their nature to be a little mischievous, a little mysterious, and a whole lot of pressing boundaries. She didn’t get many of the type here, the desert wasn’t typically their natural habitat outside of a few in select areas, and Professor Willow only sent her Pokémon that were native to the area to release. A Vullaby, and then in the future her Evolution, would be a perfect addition to the higher desert areas closer to the mountains. Not only would they live in the arid climate, they would thrive in the high altitudes of the mountain ranges nearby and add a new group of scavengers. Murkrow were decent enough, but they preferred to flock in the cities and farming communities, so their habitat zones wouldn’t overlap much.

Sierra didn’t look impressed. It was then the trainer realized she had been rambling about Murkrow and Vullaby habitats for the past two minutes and quickly clamped her mouth shut.

“…Right, anyway. We’re making cookies. All Pokemon-safe. It helps with their finer motor skills while being enjoyable.”

“Before or after you burn your house down?”

The drolling question made her blink then curse as the scent of burning finally reached her nose.

“Here-“ she shoved Pecksy into Sierra’s arms, not waiting for her response as she shooed both Wët and Maximillian from their tug-o-war with the oven door so she could save the cookies. Or try to.

She coughed as she waved her dishtowel in the open oven, wafting the smoke out of her face as it billowed out so she could see what on earth she was doing.

“Ugh, and these were my cookies too,” she bemoaned, dropping the tray with blackened mounds with a disappointing clatter onto the stovetop. “Can someone open up the windows-? Ah, thanks, Spoons. No, Maximillian, you can’t have these they’ll burn your mouth, plus you don’t get any since you already ate your dough. You two better get off the counter, or I’ll give your servings to Maxi, don’t think I won’t- Oh, Cheese!”

The Charizard had stuck his head in through the now open window, sparks curling from his nostrils as he rumbled curiously, obviously drawn by the scent and sight of smoke. His eyes shined with delight when she turned with the tray of burnt cookies towards him, still hot from the oven.

“Surprise treat from me to you- you have impeccable timing as usual. You know how it goes. A shame you’re too big to fit inside now, but you’re still the weirdo who gets to eat my burnt food when I forget all about it.”

The Charizard purred, too happy to gobble up burnt shells of cookie to complain at being designated as the weirdo of the household. The Murder all cackled and crowed in agreement.

With tray clean and set with more dough to hopefully bake without incident, she finally got back to Sierra, stopping in shock before barking out a surprise laugh at the sight. Sierra, in all her imposing glory, stood with Pecksy held out at arm’s length as if she were a ticking time bomb ready to blow up at any second. The Pokémon was curling and uncurling her talons, already having that gleam in her eye of a Pokémon plotting something devious.

The Instinct Trainer was in similar mischievous mindset. 

“I see you two are getting along! Mind if you watch her a bit longer? I need to pop out real quick to check on the Captain-“

She never saw a person snap their head around so fast. The trainer had to hide a grin as she bolted towards the door as Serious, Lone-Wolf Sierra spluttered behind her while Pecksy’s evil eye increased tenfold in a span of a single second.

“No- you can’t expect me to- get _back here you-!”_


	4. Chapter 4

The cool desert winds buffeted her as Cheese took off from the pavement and into the blue skies. Winter had settled upon the arid landscape with a noticeable drop in temperatures to a much milder and more tolerable level- and with that, an increase of people fleeing the snowy north to enjoy some sun. With those people came trainers itching for a battle and snotty customers taking up space in the shops causing a ruckus.

The white-haired woman had already lost count at how many trainers she had dodged and quite bluntly told them no when they tried to press her into a battle as soon as they saw the Pokeballs on her belt and the incubator strapped to her back. She didn’t mind the occasional one vs one, but she shouldn’t be battling at all first of, and second of all it wasn’t as funny like the silly teens with their matching R t-shirts and acting all tough.

Speaking of them, she hadn’t seen hide nor hair of them in almost three weeks. The last person she saw had been Cliff, who stopped by and very politely asked if she had any extra Ultra Balls, and that had been two weeks back. Since then all the balloons and antics had fled for the hills right before the flood of snowbirds and holiday visitors arrived, leaving the researcher to herself.

(She didn’t feel all the tad bit lonely from the lack of constant visitors and familiar balloons, not one bit).

In those three weeks, two of the three mysteries of the red-speckled Pokémon eggs were doing splendidly. Pecksy was growing feistier with every passing day, and she had begun to instruct the Dark-type in some basic battle strategy in order to develop her muscles and hone her destructive tendencies to a more productive direction. The Vullaby already weighed thrice her hatching weight, and the Instinct Trainer had already gone far out into the vast desert to find a new skull for the bird twice. She had already written Pecksy as a potential skilled battler once she evolved (and the researcher actually obtained her Trainer’s License, but that was moving like frozen molasses).

Vista the Larvitar, on the opposite end of the spectrum, was quiet. The only trouble she caused was being overly curious and getting into places she shouldn’t be poking into. Otherwise she was very polite and gentle, unusual for a Larvitar but all the welcomed in the chaotic research outpost. She didn’t show too much interest in battling, unlike Pecksy, but the researcher marked it off in her notes to come back to when the Rock/Ground-type was a tad bit older.

The last of the mysterious red eggs, however, remained as such. It was starting to worry her, who never had such a problem with hatching an egg before. Pokémon eggs hatched much faster in human care than in the wild, and while the timing fluctuated between person to person and egg to egg, it never should take this long in a healthy egg. It could be a very stubborn egg, but it could also be due to trauma happening to the egg before she received it.

It had to be stubborn. Some Pokémon didn’t want to come out right away despite having all the right conditions. She didn’t want to even think the other option, because Arlo, cruel? That man was snobbish and self-important, yet didn’t have a single shred of common sense due to how many times she had to drag him into shade before he collapsed from heatstroke. A cruel man wouldn’t have dumped an egg into her care.

“What am I going to do with you?” she asked the silent egg after she got home, groceries put away and Cheese fast asleep in the sand outside. The egg didn’t even wiggle in its incubator in response, leaving her without answers and a bit more worry than before.

\--

A loud thud shook the front door of the small research outpost, stirring Tonka Truck from his after-dinner nap with a confused burble. The trainer paused in the washing up, setting the food bowl back into the soapy water as she tried to crane her neck around the corner to the door.

“What on-?”

Another thud on the door caused the windows to rattle, the Bulbasaur rising to his feet with vines creeping out of his bulb in a defensive stance, clearly not liking the intruder who decided kicking at the door after dark was an appropriate action.

_“For goodness sake, open up!!”_

“Arlo?!”

She recognized that voice from anywhere, even muffled between walls. Abandoning her post at the sink, she immediately went to the door, Tonka Truck still grumbling something fierce in the background as wet hands fumbled for the knob.

There in the dark twilight stood Arlo, his hair askew and goggles around his neck, looking more out of sorts than she had ever seen him. It only took a quick glance down to realize what the rush was.

A red-speckled egg was clutched in Arlo’s arms, although it seemed quite eager to try to wiggle out of his grasp. A hairline fracture already ran across its surface, and even in the second she watched, another spiderwebbed out.

“Holy sh-“

Grabbing him by the elbow, the researcher yanked the man inside, kicking the door shut with her heel. Tonka Truck already had his bed pulled out for them, despite not quite happy with how he had been woken up and was watching Arlo with a sharp eye.

“Down, set it down!”

The two found themselves kneeling on the floor around the pillow, egg set in the middle as it started to wiggle far more energetically now that it wasn’t being jostled around.

“What on earth were you thinking, bringing a hatching egg all the way out here?!”

“I didn’t mean to! It wasn’t doing anything until I was already halfway here to drop it off, and it just started doing this!”

Arlo was well beside himself, jumped up on panic on having an egg starting to hatch while several hundred feet up in the air. She couldn’t believe that an egg showed absolutely no sign of hatching and then was already halfway to busting out in a matter of a few minutes, but she’d kept the incredulousness to herself, instead rising to her feet with a quick “Keep an eye on it!” before barreling into the workroom to find her phone for documentation. It wouldn’t be the same as the other machines, but setting them up right now was entirely out of the question.

“Hurry up!” Arlo’s voice had taken an unusual higher pitch by the time she wrangled her phone from its charging port, cursing under her breath after knocking over a stack of notebooks on the floor along the way.

“I’m coming!” she yelled back, phone clenched in her fist as she slid back out of the room, losing all traction for a brief moment in her socks before dropping down beside the panicking man.

She had come in the nick of time. With one last wiggle, a brown, slimy appendage busted out of the side, sending egg shell everywhere. Another gripped the cracked edge, holding it like a hat as tiny feet kicked at the remaining shell, beady eyes blinking up at them before it gurgled.

“A Trubbish!”

She couldn’t help but grin at the Pokémon before her, phone out before her as she scanned the hatching. “Hello there! Oh, I’ve never had a Trubbish before. Aren’t you adorable?”

“It’s _hideous.”_

Tonka Truck smacked Arlo in the rear with a vine, making him yelp. The Trubbish waved its sticky arms in delight.

“And for that comment,” the Instinct Trainer began, glancing down at the data recorded on her phone. “I’ll call you Pretty Lady. After all, a pretty girl like yourself needs a name to tell the world how pretty you truly are.”

Pretty Lady opened her mouth and made a squeal not dissimilar to squeaking plastic. Arlo made a disgusted choking noise, which was quickly silenced by a dangerous look from the Bulbasaur.

“Right, well, I’ll leave… _that_ , to you,” Arlo tried to sneer, jutting his chin towards the Trubbish, who was being entertained by Tonka Truck’s vines, holding them just out of reach from the happy Pretty Lady. He even tried to look dignified standing up, brushing the invisible filth off his knees, and making a face down his nose at the researcher. “After all, trash belong to trash.”

“Wow,” she drawled, a grin working its way onto her mouth. “Been saving that up, have you?”

Arlo turned as red as the stripe in his hair, not bothering answering her as he angrily stomped off towards the door and wrenched it open like a petulant child, not even bothering slamming it shut as it walked off into the dark.

“What a funny dude,” she said to herself as she stood in the open doorway, watching the shadow continue his trek back towards the balloon parked off nearby. A warm form leaned against her leg, and absently she reached down to pet the soft fur. “You’d think he’d learn to get that stick out of his ass, huh… huh?”

She had thought it had been one of the Persians that had escaped their Pokéball again. Instead she found herself petting an Absol, a piece of eggshell hanging precariously off the tip of its spiraling horn.

A laugh escaped her before she could control herself.

“Well, good evening to you too!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading this story! I hope you enjoyed it!


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